In Part II of The Stranger, Meursault
is being very candid with his lawyer. Meursault up until his trial and execution had
lived in denial of death. He narrates:
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He went on to ask if I had felt grief on that
“sad occasion.” The question struck me as an odd one; I’d have been much embarrassed if
I’d had to ask anyone a thing like that.
I
answered that, of recent years, I’d rather lost the habit of noting my
feelings, and hardly knew what to answer. I could truthfully say I’d been
quite fond of Mother—but really that didn’t mean much. All normal people,
I added as on afterthought, had more or less desired the death of those they loved, at
some time or another.
Here the lawyer
interrupted me, looking greatly perturbed.
“You must
promise me not to say anything of that sort at the trial, or to the examining
magistrate.”
I promised, to satisfy him, but
I explained that my physical condition at any given moment often
influenced my feelings. For instance, on the day I attended Mother’s
funeral, I was fagged out and only half awake. So, really, I hardly took stock of what
was happening. Anyhow, I could assure him of one thing: that I’d rather Mother hadn’t
died.
So, Meursault is
explaining his stoicism and general apathy toward death and a society that glorifies it.
He has lost touch with his own feelings, I believe, because of society's denial of
freedom for the individual.
Throughout the novel, Meursault
has been determined by a culture that limits his freedom. Because of a boss that says
he must love work, a funeral director that says he should view his mother's body, a
group of old people who believe he should stay awake during a vigil, a chaplain and
magistrate who assert that he must believe in God and an afterlife, and a lawyer here
who believes he must not wish death upon a family member, Meursault has been rendered an
outsider, an alien, and a stranger to his culture, his people, and the institutions
therein.
Meursault is unaware of and in denial of the way
the culture takes away the individual's freedom to choose life instead of conformity and
death. Certainly, he is in denial of his mother's death because he, in fact, loved her
so much. He would rather imagine her alive than see her dead. Instead of feeling guilt
, Meursault wishes death for his loved ones as a means of last resort to escape an
illegitimate and hypocritical society. Later, Meursault will say that no one had the
right to cry over his mother because she was ready to live her life all over
again.
He wishes his loved ones (mother) dead because we
all see death as absurd: it is beyond the control of the living. Death is an
abstraction, not a reality, so why not try to imagine our loved ones dead? How would we
react? It is inevitable that we try to imagine the unimaginable. We have, although no
one but Meursault would admit, wished death upon ourselves. Why? It is because the
death is often chosen for us by society. The culture sentences us to lives of
meaninglessness.
The truth is, Meursault wants his mother
to enjoy the life she had again. In fact, he wants her to cheat death and live a second
life on earth. This is the dream of the absurd hero, one who--like Sisyphus--hates
death, loves life, and scorns the gods. Just as Sisyphus escaped Hades and enjoyed a
second life on earth with his wife, so too does Meursault wish that he and his mother
could live life without regret and in denial of death.
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